Program helps Jewish students to stay kosher
By: Lauren Durand
Issue date: 4/6/06
Section: News
Jewish students are at a disadvantage in Kirksville, especially during Passover, but a St. Louis-based organization is trying to make it a little easier.
Chabad on Campus, an organization that serves the Jewish needs of students, is offering free "Passover to Go" packages to Jewish college students in Missouri to help them observe the Passover holiday. "Passover to Go" packages include several items for a Seder meal, such as matzo crackers, grape juice, potato chips cooked for Passover and a Seder plate.
The word "Seder" means "order" in Hebrew, said Sherri Palmer, professor of psychology, who also is Jewish. It is an ordered service and celebration of Passover that includes a long meal.
Passover is an eight-day festival that commemorates the Jewish exodus in 1313 BCE, according to Chabad on Campus. This year it will be celebrated from sundown Wednesday to sundown May 20 with Seder dinners Wednesday and Thursday.
"The 'Passover to Go' program is an opportunity for students who are not in the St. Louis area and aren't going home necessarily for the Passover Seder to experience and put on their own Seder by themselves with their friends," said Rabbi Hershey Novack, director of Chabad on Campus. "We're helping to empower students to their Jewish identity and Jewish roots, wherever they are."
Few Truman students have participated in the "Passover to Go" program since its inception two years ago, but any Jewish student interested can register at www.chabadoncampus.org until Sunday, Novack said.
[...]
Graduate student Ben Kort, the former president of Hillel, said he usually tries to go home for Passover.
"Or if it's in the middle of the week like it is this year, we'll just band together as a group and have a Seder with other Jews around the Kirksville community," Kort said.
He said that often he and other students have had to carpool to Columbia to attend services at the closest synagogue.
The lack of a local synagogue is the main reason why Truman has such a small Jewish community, Kort said.
"I've known a lot of people who've said, 'Oh, I almost went to Truman, but there are no Jews there,'" he said.
He said procuring appropriate food and supplies for Passover in Kirksville also is a problem.
"We all try to follow the kosher laws for Passover, which involves not having anything that has any leaven in it," Kort said. "We can't have bread, we can't have regular potato chips, we can't have rice, we can't have any of that sort of thing. So we do our best to work within the confines of Sodexho or Hy-Vee or Wal-Mart and get our own food that will work for that."
Issue date: 4/6/06
Section: News
Jewish students are at a disadvantage in Kirksville, especially during Passover, but a St. Louis-based organization is trying to make it a little easier.
Chabad on Campus, an organization that serves the Jewish needs of students, is offering free "Passover to Go" packages to Jewish college students in Missouri to help them observe the Passover holiday. "Passover to Go" packages include several items for a Seder meal, such as matzo crackers, grape juice, potato chips cooked for Passover and a Seder plate.
The word "Seder" means "order" in Hebrew, said Sherri Palmer, professor of psychology, who also is Jewish. It is an ordered service and celebration of Passover that includes a long meal.
Passover is an eight-day festival that commemorates the Jewish exodus in 1313 BCE, according to Chabad on Campus. This year it will be celebrated from sundown Wednesday to sundown May 20 with Seder dinners Wednesday and Thursday.
"The 'Passover to Go' program is an opportunity for students who are not in the St. Louis area and aren't going home necessarily for the Passover Seder to experience and put on their own Seder by themselves with their friends," said Rabbi Hershey Novack, director of Chabad on Campus. "We're helping to empower students to their Jewish identity and Jewish roots, wherever they are."
Few Truman students have participated in the "Passover to Go" program since its inception two years ago, but any Jewish student interested can register at www.chabadoncampus.org until Sunday, Novack said.
[...]
Graduate student Ben Kort, the former president of Hillel, said he usually tries to go home for Passover.
"Or if it's in the middle of the week like it is this year, we'll just band together as a group and have a Seder with other Jews around the Kirksville community," Kort said.
He said that often he and other students have had to carpool to Columbia to attend services at the closest synagogue.
The lack of a local synagogue is the main reason why Truman has such a small Jewish community, Kort said.
"I've known a lot of people who've said, 'Oh, I almost went to Truman, but there are no Jews there,'" he said.
He said procuring appropriate food and supplies for Passover in Kirksville also is a problem.
"We all try to follow the kosher laws for Passover, which involves not having anything that has any leaven in it," Kort said. "We can't have bread, we can't have regular potato chips, we can't have rice, we can't have any of that sort of thing. So we do our best to work within the confines of Sodexho or Hy-Vee or Wal-Mart and get our own food that will work for that."
[...]
Source: Truman State University Index, April 6, 2006